Lecture | European Union Seminar
Are your laws made by Big Oil? The unravelling of EU’s corporate accountability rules
- Date
- Friday 6 March 2026
- Time
- Serie
- European Union Seminar Series
- Address
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- 0.11 (Journalism Lab)
In 2024, the EU adopted a landmark law to hold large corporations accountable for human rights violations and climate harms in their supply chains – Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). Only a few months later, the European Commission decided to water it down completely. What happened? The question is all the more important as the demise of CSDDD kicked off the so-called Omnibus process, a deregulation wave that is now affecting practically all policy areas in the EU. Research conducted by the Amsterdam-based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) shows that a small but powerful coalition of mainly US fossil fuel companies, with support from the Trump administration, played a crucial role in lobbying for the deregulation of the EU’s supply chain law. Join us for a discussion of the role large corporations play in shaping EU policies and the role of researchers and civil society organizations in keeping the EU accountable.
About the speaker
David Ollivier de Leth has worked as a researcher for SOMO since 2018, mainly focusing on corporate accountability in supply chains, the CSDDD, and the political power of multinationals. Between 2018 and 2024, he also worked for the MVO Platform, the Dutch coalition of civil society organisations and trade unions advocating for binding supply chain laws.
